“His condition was already serious when he was admitted to this service. He was no longer responding to treatment,” says Dr. Raymond Rakotoarimanana, Atsinanana Regional Director of Public Health, on the phone yesterday. This foreigner, who had been living in Toamasina for years, lost his life just hours after being admitted to hospital.

He is not the first foreigner to fall victim of plague in this outbreak. An additional foreigner in Toamasina was sickened with plague and in the capital city of Antananarivo, a Seychellois and a Comorian were among the victims.

Also in Toamasina, it is reported that health workers and volunteers working in the fight against the plague epidemic have been hunted by furious residents. The people used sticks and knives to frighten the health workers.

As a result of this violent reaction, the DRSP Antsinanana decided to temporarily suspend activities at the community level Friday. This suspension of activities could expose some people who came into contact with patients, to the disease, thus, cause the appearance of new cases.

It isn’t hard to convince poorly educated people that the foreigners conducting vaccination campaigns are deliberately spreading the virus. May a special place in hell be reserved for those responsible. In the meantime the poor victims will have to see if the local witch doctor can cure them.

Why are there so many differing figures from varying websites? Since Friday 20 October, there has been no true figure of the maximum cases and deaths from this plague. I would have thought that in this day and age, some organisation would be keeping accurate figures of the number infected, so as to check whether the disease is still on the rise, or declining. Evidently that is not the case.

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